Picking out a good book

Thursday

Aug 22, 2013 at 3:26 PM

My interests vary, but I love mysteries.

Bill Shrum

Well folks, as you have guessed it, I have been reading a book again. Well, I confess more than one book this summer. That is just the way it is for my book reading summer days. After work, I do enjoy reading, it relaxes me so much because I don't watch too much television, there just isn't much on that interest me too much so I just grab a book and start reading.

My interests vary, but I love mysteries. I enjoy Nora Roberts, Heather Graham and her ghost stories. I do enjoy Danielle Steele very much and I have read several books of hers. I enjoy the non-lawyer books of John Grisham and he had a number of non-lawyer books. Calico Joe is my favorite of all.

Over two months ago, I was given a book at the local library on the Lindbergh kidnapping, entitled "Cemetery John." I have always enjoyed the fascination of that kidnapping 75 years ago. It had everything in it that still intrigues the American spirit. It has plenty of notoriety, such as a high profile characters, money, risk, ransom plot, a cast of characters, a hint of conspiracy and the death of a 2-year-old baby.

This event shocked the nation and the world. How on earth could this happen right before everyone's eyes with people in the house? It had to be an inside job. That was all there was to it. That was the pretense of the investigation early on and believe me they went after the help full force. They were so cruel to the help that one of the innocent persons eventually killed herself.

This book reveals it all and exposes three people, who were involved in this conspiracy to kidnap the Lindbergh baby for ransom and get away with it. That was the intention and believe me two of those people did. It took the third to get caught and take the blame all by himself. This all took a total of two years for the money trail to come back to Bruno Hauptman. He was accused and convicted in the trial full of everything you can imagine.

Before everyone knew it, Hauptman was accused as the lone kidnapper and two people virtually got away with the kidnapping. Robert Zorn reveals two brothers, who were never caught and were concealed by the refusal of Hauptman to reveal them to the authorities. Zorn places a plausible piece together to reveal the plot of the "Crime of the Century."

The book, written by Zorn, reveals the complexity of the "Trial of the Century" and the three characters involved with new insights, profiling, which was not heard of then, new photographs and new evidence. This book was very interesting and thought solving to say the least. There were two new characters that no one else had heard of, such as two brothers who had everything to live for, money and a desire for a business.

The trail was full of "circus atmosphere" at the time, a prejudiced defense attorney, who just knew that his client was guilty, a prejudiced jury from the start and a press who just knew that Hauptman did this incredibly hard task all alone. This is what made the public hang on the every word of the radio broadcasts of the day, before television cameras and day-to-day testimony on the television.

I truly enjoy cold cases to read and see if I believe that the ones who did it got away with murder. Usually they don't until someone reveals the results and majority of the time, the crime is solved and either everyone is dead or the crime is long forgotten. In this case of the Lindbergh kidnapping, the three, I think are exposed and the crime is solved. Yes, two brothers walked around untouched and their conspirator and friend was executed for the murder and kidnapping. It is wonderful reading.